Protection = Invincibility

Stratics Veteran

I'm writing this thread specifically for the devs and designers. Any opinions or comments are also welcome.

In the old days of UO, the spell "protection" was created and slowly modified to yield pros and cons to a mage that seemed fair (and they were). However with the new spells and possibilities from Mysticism I feel as though the spell needs to be reworked.

The current state of the game allows for the EASY recovery of the 35 Resist Spells lost from the spell. There are a few decent items with Resisting Spells on them combined with imbuing it on a ring. This is turn makes the caster practically invulnerable to any funny business from magic (ie poisons, para, mana vamp etc).

The caster also loses 15 physical resist which is again very easily made up for with the mega suits from imbuing and factions. Assuming the caster is human he only needs to make up for 14 physical (and 34 resist) from the human 20 points of inscription..

Ok so we've easily taken care of a few of the downsides with minimal effort required. What's next? Well you automatically have 0 FC no matter what which means you don't need ANY casting on ANY pieces of your suit! Talk about making a MEGA mage weapon!

Now I've saved the best (and the real point of this thread) for last. While you're in protection you cannot be interrupted which is the whole reason for the spell obviously. So what does that REALLY entail? Can I really heal/cast through anything? What if I'm poisoned or mortaled you say? Well guess what! We now have a spell that takes care of ALL of that in Cleansing Wind. Combine that with no chance of being interrupted with BAM! Instant God Mode! You can heal yourself and cross heal guild mates without ANY threat whatsoever! Try killing a mystic mage in protection and you will see what I mean.

So now that we have all this information you'll probably ask "Well what's your point? We already know mysticism is really good". Obviously I'm agreeing with you and saying yes it is very good. Overpowered? I think that can be debated either way as I've been on both sides of the situation above. The real problem is the newer templates which incorporate some of the new with the old cause some major imbalance in combination with one another. I'm not talking about spell plague comboing which everyone keeps complaining about which can be appled. When the game allows you to combine a spell which essentially solves EVERY possible harm to your character then at the same time allows you to cast it without any possibility of being interrupted, you will see some imbalance. As of right now Cleansing Wind with 120/120 can heal a target for nearly 70 points of damage. There's only ONE possible way to deal THAT MUCH damage in one hit and that's death strike. But why do I need to run when you can't interrupt me anyway?

The older spells as a whole need to be re-examined under the new light of the current meta-game. Some are underpowered while others instantly become overpowered in conjunction with newer spells and ideas.

Before anyone flames or yells I charge that person with the challenge of killing a capable mystic mage in protection with all the above working for him. Good luck with that.

Stratics Veteran

I disagree. While with Protection spell active and various exceptional healing abilities you can survive most attacks, this is all you can do: Survive. Nobody with Protection active can seriously harm any skilled PvPer, because his casting speed will simply be too slow to achieve the required damage over time.

the -35 spell resist skill penalty should never have been put in game. as is the protection penalty is overly harsh. also, your "taken care of the downsides with minimal effort" seem very light on any actual information.

Stratics Veteran

the -35 spell resist skill penalty should never have been put in game. as is the protection penalty is overly harsh. also, your "taken care of the downsides with minimal effort" seem very light on any actual information.

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Are you just not familiar with imbuing or the items that come with resist on them or something? I could go into detail but that seems like a waste of time.

Stratics Veteran

quite familiar with imbuing,thanks for asking. well if its a waste of time why did you bother to post in the first place?

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Because for those familiar with 1v1 and who pvp on a daily basis will definitely see what I'm getting at. The waste of time would be posting all the explanations about resist spells on items which you could easily look up yourself.

Stratics Veteran

So protection may make a mage harder to kill, big deal. Makes the mage harder to kill. However it also makes them a lot less able to do any real offense.

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I'm not disagreeing with this at all. People are failing to see the relationship between protection and cleansing wind. If it's not possible to cast that spell while in protection then it's perfectly fine. You can mortal or poison the protection mage to slow him down enough to force action past a stalemate. Sure they could apple but then they can't apple again for bit which allows room for damage.

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

Ok so we've easily taken care of a few of the downsides with minimal effort required. What's next? Well you automatically have 0 FC no matter what which means you don't need ANY casting on ANY pieces of your suit! Talk about making a MEGA mage weapon!

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... I stopped reading here. I guess you don't consider jewels part of a suit, but then, why would weapons be included? Even though your post isn't very clear about that FC issue I'll assume you know what you were trying to say.

For others, I'm not sure if anyone spelled this out yet, but protection reduces faster cast by 2 and sets a hard cap of FC 0 for magery no matter how many FC items you use (ie, if you had no FC on your "suit," jewels, etc., you'd be at -2 FC, and if you had 4 FC on suit, you'd go back up to 0 FC and stop there, so yeah, you'd have to still use 2/6 on jewels or suit or whatever).

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

Ok so we've easily taken care of a few of the downsides with minimal effort required. What's next? Well you automatically have 0 FC no matter what which means you don't need ANY casting on ANY pieces of your suit! Talk about making a MEGA mage weapon!

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I'm sorry... how does "your casting speed is decreased" equating with "you automatically have 0 FC," and how does "0 FC" equate to "you don't need ANY casting on ANY pieces of your suit!"

You will want to have FC 2 on your character... Protection reduces your FC by 2. This is applied after the cap, which means if you're wearing FC2, you end up with FC0. If you have nothing on, or are at FC0, then you become FC-2.

Stratics Veteran

But something doesn't quite add up right, because if I have protection on, and I cast Fireball, target, cast again, with 0 FC, I end up being told "you have not yet recovered from casting a spell." Same as if I have no protection on and 0 FC. Still cannot chain Fireball.

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Just saying, what you're describing is FCR, or Faster Cast Recovery, that's the delay after casting a spell.

FC is how fast you actually cast the spell, so what you're describing, wouldn't be affected by FC, only FCR which isn't discussed under this example as Protection only alters Faster Casting

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

If a stone form / protection mage has -4 FC, and would be back to 0 with 4/6, then that situation would make for a crazy hard to kill healer mystic but it would also be hard for that guy to chug pots or do any offense, assuming he gets last FC from shield. Solution? Keep him debuffed and out of form. But maybe stone form should also have a cooldown period after being forced out by a debuff, if it becomes an issue.

Stratics Veteran

If a stone form / protection mage has -4 FC, and would be back to 0 with 4/6, then that situation would make for a crazy hard to kill healer mystic but it would also be hard for that guy to chug pots or do any offense, assuming he gets last FC from shield. Solution? Keep him debuffed and out of form. But maybe stone form should also have a cooldown period after being forced out by a debuff, if it becomes an issue.

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I didn't even mention stone form in protection coupled with cleansing wind because that's just retardo busted. I do like the idea of a cool down period that you're mentioning. It would make purge magic a little more useful and would provide a reasonable counter to protection.

As for the "no FC needed on jewels" I was going under the assuption that said mystic mage is wearing orni in factions and not some garbage non faction mage suit. I should have specified.

Stratics Veteran

i think what happened was i confused GH with cleansing winds, I think that hs the 40 mana base? Not sure. It's late >.<

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Cleansing has a cost of 20 mana less 40 LMC which = 12. Again it's not that protection is so unfair. It's the ability to cast this spell for 12 mana to heal a TON of damage (70ish) and/or remove any debuff that MIGHT have slowed you down. Bear in mind that in protection this spell takes about 2.5 or so seconds to cast. Most mystic mages with meditation regenerate about 2-2.5 mana per second. That's a LOT LOT of cleansing winds you can cast with a 140 mana pool without stopping.

If a stone form / protection mage has -4 FC, and would be back to 0 with 4/6, then that situation would make for a crazy hard to kill healer mystic but it would also be hard for that guy to chug pots or do any offense, assuming he gets last FC from shield. Solution? Keep him debuffed and out of form. But maybe stone form should also have a cooldown period after being forced out by a debuff, if it becomes an issue.

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Does stone form suddenly take -4 fc? Because...with 0fc and you cast protection, you still have 0. People seem to always confuse how protection works. The simple answer is it takes the fc cap of any skill and subtract 2 that would be your cap, so even in stone form if you have an orni you would have 0fc (unless stoneform is somehow making your fc -4)

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

Does stone form suddenly take -4 fc? Because...with 0fc and you cast protection, you still have 0. People seem to always confuse how protection works. The simple answer is it takes the fc cap of any skill and subtract 2 that would be your cap, so even in stone form if you have an orni you would have 0fc (unless stoneform is somehow making your fc -4)

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stone form is supposed to be -2 FC, I can't say I've tested it and maybe something has changed since beta but it would be an easy test in new client to see if it's -4 FC w/ mage's protection.

whether I'm wrong to or not, I've of the camp that never uses protection spell to mage pvp hehe. so slow. so that's why I really haven't tested it out. I'm much more interested, personally, in how stone form is changing pvm :s. won't be just sampires any wammies :O.

Ok, since spoonyd is obviously the only one in this thread that knows anything about mage pvp, I'll clear things up for you guys. A mystic mage in protection using cleanse winds can survive ANY two mages as long as they themselves are not mystic mages...you simply cannot deal enough damage as a mage when every cleanse winds heals for 60, removes poison, removes curse, etc. This is not even including pots and such. So, in essence, you could loop a uoa macro to cleanse winds yourself over and over with two mages dumping you, leave your computer for 5 minutes, come back and find yourself still alive. I don't see how anybody can argue that this does not defeat the entire purpose of the game. In an ideal pvp scenario, any single player should have the opportunity to kill another, let alone two players. There is not one other template that can survive two mages without moving a single tile and never die.

Note that anybody refuting what I just stated is simply a bad mage that has benefited tremendously from mysticism, which has all but defeated the purpose of mage pvp. Don't worry, when mysticism is fixed once again you'll be back to your terrible selves.

FYI, Protection doesn't reduce FC below 0. It basically sets your FC at 0 regardless of the amount of FC items you wear. Test it with 0 FC and you'll see that you cast the same speed regardless of whether you have Protection on or not.

Stratics Veteran

if mage has wrestle and disarms dexer, maybe. what if it's an archer with distance between you two ? either way, three ai's with 60ssi/high stamina with a fast weapon will seriously make the mage rethink the attack,with high dci/mw or not.

Stratics Veteran

I'm not sure why everyone is calling the OP a wuss, a liar, or anything.

I consider myself a pretty solid mage.

and if a mystic mage goes into protection, and just spams cleansing winds on himself. I CANNOT kill him. Add in stone form, where you can curse him, and it gets that much worse.

There are 3 ways to stop this.

1. be on a mystic and purge them out of protection.
2. be a dexer and chain mortal them while someone else does the damage.
3. have a large group of people sync big damage on them.

Basically, anything but another mystic cannot feasibly kill this person. You cannot chain para them because the long casting time of cleansing winds will stop the para, and you cannot dump enough damage ina short period of time to counter the speed of cleansing winds.

Now granted, i realize this person could not kill anyone. But assume they are part of a group. This person becomes the ultimate crosshealer with cleansing winds. this person could be one of the worst mages ever to play uo, but if they adopt this simple tactic, they are half impossible to kill without a gank.

Flame if you wish, but i have seen some terrible pvpers hop in pro on a mystic and not die unless purged or chain mortaled. Its a joke that you cannot kill someone you damnw ell know you should kill in about 6 seconds, because of the mechanics of the spells, cleansing winds, pro, stone form, and paralyze. I can live with spell plague doing what it does, but soemthing that makes someone that survivable is a joke. What reason does anyone have to not play a mystic?

Stratics Veteran

You had no issues playing an overpowered alchemist archer up until the nerf, why come out and cry foul now?

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Don't you have anything better to do than make worthless posts online? This is supposed to be a REAL discussion of a REAL problem within the game.

In response to an above post about just purging it away....did you not read the paragraph about items with resist spells on them making them 120 again post protection?

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My statement and follow up question have everything to do with the reason you posted this thread. You play an archer correct? You also used potions before your template was nerfed correct? Who cares if a person uses items to get back to 120 resist again...if other people use skill jewelry, why is this template taking advantage whilst others are not?

The way I see it, you are complaining because your template is no longer as effective as it was a month ago. Now that mages have a better chance against a running shot archer, you decided that it is unfair. Am I doing alright so far? Or would you please elaborate on why you decided now was a good time for this thread....

Stratics Veteran

My statement and follow up question have everything to do with the reason you posted this thread. You play an archer correct? You also used potions before your template was nerfed correct? Who cares if a person uses items to get back to 120 resist again...if other people use skill jewelry, why is this template taking advantage whilst others are not?

The way I see it, you are complaining because your template is no longer as effective as it was a month ago. Now that mages have a better chance against a running shot archer, you decided that it is unfair. Am I doing alright so far? Or would you please elaborate on why you decided now was a good time for this thread....

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Even if I could still throw pots killing a protection mage is almost impossible 1v1. But I'll gladly fight you 1v1 on your mystic mage for gold if you aren't in protection. Then you can tell me if fencer archer isn't still effective? How am I doing so far? Are you outta tram yet?

Stratics Veteran

Even if I could still throw pots killing a protection mage is almost impossible 1v1. But I'll gladly fight you 1v1 on your mystic mage for gold if you aren't in protection. Then you can tell me if fencer archer isn't still effective? How am I doing so far? Are you outta tram yet?

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I had to step out of trammel to kill you last time silly!

Anyway, there are more than a few templates out there that are difficult to kill. I think it is rather simple minded of anyone to single out a template just because they now have a difficult time killing it, as opposed to a few weeks ago. I suggest a new strategy.

My mystic? I hardly play it, I would rather use my old school tank scribe any day. Unlike some people, I never have really been a flavor of the month sort of player. Again tho, this isn't about me...this is about your inability to kill a template due to your template getting the sack.

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